


Lost in Night

by llaras



Category: Firefly
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Serenity, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4754669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llaras/pseuds/llaras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone dies. And then there is incest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in Night

**Author's Note:**

> Specially crafted for [](http://dirty-diana.livejournal.com/profile)[dirty_diana](http://dirty-diana.livejournal.com/) for the [](http://nsp-ficathon.livejournal.com/profile)[nsp_ficathon](http://nsp-ficathon.livejournal.com/). Many thanks to [](http://sffan.livejournal.com/profile)[sffan](http://sffan.livejournal.com/), [](http://inalasahl.livejournal.com/profile)[inalasahl](http://inalasahl.livejournal.com/) and [](http://finitejester37.livejournal.com/profile)[finitejester37](http://finitejester37.livejournal.com/) for the helpful suggestions and beta work.

 

_Kaylee fell._

_We were too late._

_There was nothing we could do._

_She just fell._

*****

The lights.

They are flickering.

The corners remain dark.

Simon looks up at Inara, at her exquisitely painted red lips. She's saying something, but it doesn't make sense. He looks back down at the blanket-covered form by his feet. One small hand escaped their careful ministrations, lies just outside the tucked-in folds, and he wonders: is she cold?

He can hear Jayne cursing in the background. And something breaking. He imagines that is Mal.

The lights flicker again as he straightens from his crouch. There is nothing he can do. He can't mend something so completely broken.

It seems impossible. He wasn't gone long enough for something like this to happen. He had to pick up some medicines, and a present for her.

He fumbles the small token out of his vest pocket and presses it into Inara's warm hands. He wants to tell her that yes, it's just a silly thing, but she would have loved it. The words won't come. Inara will know what to do with it.

He turns and goes back outside to the dust storm he had escaped just minutes before. His eyes are still stinging and the sour taste in his mouth has worsened. He falls to his knees, knows he will vomit.

Someone has come up behind him, kneels with him and takes his hand.

River squeezes his fingers and lightly presses a kiss to his temple.

*****

Simon is an excellent doctor. He knows all the ways and means to mend and heal when it comes to bullet holes and knife wounds and broken bones. He's very knowledgeable about how the body works and what to do when it isn't.

This is why River remains silent when he begins to medicate himself. She sees in him a purpose, a scientist's way of dealing with grief and loss. She sees that he knows precisely what to take and for how long. She has to trust this, to believe that he can take care of himself as well as he takes care of her.

But she also knows that intent isn't everything. And so she watches and waits.

*****

Mal rages all the time now. Zoe and Inara revolve around him, like two moons, one shadowed and one serene.

There has been too much loss.

The jobs get less risky and bring back less pay, but Mal isn't ready to listen to reason. He just wants them back: Wash in the pilot's seat and Kaylee in the engine room. Their two brightest gone, just like that.

This darkness will not pass easily.

*****  
  
Something in the morning to help focus, something else at night to sleep without the dreams. That's the important one. He would rather forget Kaylee's face altogether than ever see again what his mind has conjured up: bruised, bloody and broken images that shriek and cry out to him. The pills work nicely, just as he knew they would.

River's the only one who notices, she's by his side all day and night. She helps in the infirmary, saying she wants to learn the tricks of his trade, and at night she slips in and holds his hand until he drifts off. They don't speak of it.

He knows River is aware of what he is doing -- and allows it -- because she knows there will come a time when it will stop. The pain will lessen soon. It has to.

*****

Jayne brings a bride back to Serenity. Her name is Vonnie and she's tall and loud with long black hair that she keeps secure in a single braid over one shoulder. She doesn't know anything about ships, but she can shoot a gun and makes a mean hum bao. Jayne sometimes has to wipe away a tear when she cooks, it's so good. She is not a replacement.

She observes them all closely those first few days; learns who to trust and who to keep at arm's length. She's wary of the pale, quiet doctor and the girl who ghosts after him. The others look away. Jayne won't discuss it.

*****

Simon ignores the occasional tremors in his hands, the blurred vision and the night sweats.

He's getting better, he tells himself. He can barely see her face anymore.

Just a while longer, then.

*****

He never used to talk in his sleep. But now he mutters all night long about anything and nothing. River likes it best when Simon recites something from his university days: poems and lists of scientific names that may as well be poetry with the reverence and awe he affords them. She snuggles in close and dreams in Latin.

The worst is when he shouts and sobs, calls her names and River has to hold him down, cover his mouth to keep the others from hearing.

Later she covers her own mouth, to keep herself from breaking apart.

She has to make this stop.

*****

An attempt is made to welcome the new mechanic, a small balding man in his fifties, but the crew is still in mourning and not even the box of chocolates he produces after his first dinner onboard is met with more than simple thanks.

Fergus is a man of few words, but he's a big believer in making merry and the solemnity that pervades the ship is difficult to escape. His magic tricks don't even make the little sister laugh.

So he bides his time and gets to know all the ins and outs of the lovely ship that he's been charged to take care of. He finds joy in the powerful machinery that keeps them alive and flying, and allows the rest to go where it may.

*****  
River can no longer find sense in her brother's head, so she makes the decision for him. She tampers with Simon's pills, changes the dose just enough to start him on the way to clarity.

His body recognizes the change right away, even if his mind doesn't. There are no more peaceful nights. Only the other kind.

River is there through the fever and thrashings, the delirium and confusion. She keeps him as comfortable as she can with cool towels and soft murmurs; tells him stories about what they will do when he is better.

She has to be careful to scale back the drug just a little at a time, too much of a change would be a shock that could possibly damage Simon's already fragile system. That's not something she can play with. Already she is skirting the line between dangerous and deadly.

*****

Simon begins to sleep better again, an hour here or there, the ravings and tumult a thing of the past. River rests better too, listening to his heartbeat and the soft sounds of his breathing. And when he calls out _her_ name in his sleep and reaches out into the darkness, River is there, letting herself be held and whispered to. She takes what comfort she can from her brother's embrace, though it is someone else he holds in his dreams.

And one night he starts awake and seems to see her for the first time in weeks. He tells her he's sorry, he didn't mean to put her through so much, that he's happy she's there.

River hasn't been able to read him for some time; the pills cloud his perceptions of the world and in turn, her perceptions of him. She accepts his words, his love. Her chest almost bursts, thinking it is over, he is well again.

Her desperation to believe that they have reached the end is her greatest mistake. This is when the line she has so carefully not stepped over becomes moot, because now when he reaches out, River denies him nothing. Her heart, her tears, her body. She cannot see what _is_ anymore and her fear for what could have been overwhelms all reason.

The harsh reality sets in even before she crests the final wave of sensation, their hands locked, mouths bruised and wet. It's all come down to one word, one name Simon calls out. And it's not hers.

But he is all she has left and now he is hers.

Let morning come.


End file.
